Fun facts
#1 All candidates have short hair (no, Violeta Tomič doesn’t count. You didn’t even know she was running anyways)
#2 Commission candidates speak better English than Parliament candidates (sorry, guys, it’s the truth)
#3 None of these candidates will become President of the European Commission
Nico Cué
Cute, with that genuine inability, typical of old people, of understanding the present. But moving personal story, to say the truth.
Ska Keller
Half-persuasive. She reminded us of that classmate who studied only one topic well in-depth (environment), hoping the teacher would ask about it.
Frans Timmermans
Surprisingly reassuring, passionate and charismatic. All in vain?
Special mention for merging BrexitBrexit, a portmanteau of "British" and "exit", is the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. Following a UK-wide referendum in June 2016, in which 48% voted to remain in the EU and 52% had no idea what they were voting for, the British government formally announced the... and Game of Thrones (“Today, the UK looks like Game of Thrones on steroids”)
Margrethe Vestager
Almost transparent (*), she woke up only when corporations and taxes were mentioned. But she wins the Eurocratic Pun of the Evening: “For me, Tax H(e)aven is where everybody pays taxes”.
Manfred Weber
Not in his best shape. Besides the accent of war movies’ bad guys, he managed to mention a “final solution on migrants”. Though this might steal some votes from AfD.
Jan Zahradil
Made his (questionable) point quite clear and almost managed to look like a moderate, reasonable person. Too bad his eyes were betraying him.
Populist leaders
Best strategy and best performance. By not showing up, people will not know how insane they are, and might think they are a better alternative to what we saw yesterday. “Absent is always in the right” (<- Eurocratic pun of the week).
(*) We must confess: on the first draft of this post the Director-General forgot to mention her. And the reviewer didn’t notice that the Director-General forgot to mention her. It was only when counting the candidates that her absence became clear.